“Worse than down here?”
She realised that the easiest way to offend him was to insult the house. “I appreciate that this is not the luxury you’re used to,” he responded icily.
She was afraid, and then she was angry. “Do you intend us to stay here?”
He let his hands fall away from her shoulders. “Yes.”
“How do you expect me to live? Is there any food here?”
“Of course not. I have no need of it.”
“Well, I can’t live on air, nor on –” She couldn’t say the word, blood. “Is there a village nearby?”
“Four miles away. But you can’t be seen coming and going, and we can’t ask tradesmen to call because we’re not meant to be here.”
“Otherwise you’d be happy for me to walk eight miles to fetch the milk, is that it?” she gasped. “For pity’s sake, Sebastian, there is no water!”
“There’s a well in the garden.”
“You’re not listening. There is no functioning plumbing at all, is there? Human beings have certain inconvenient requirements, in case you’d forgotten. You may have dispensed with them, but I haven’t!”
He looked straight at her. “Then find a suitable receptacle, and acquire the habit of feeding the roses. I don’t care what arrangements you make.”
Robyn was close to hitting him. “Why do we have to stay here at all? You could take me to a hotel!”
“But I love this house.”
“What does that make me? Another ornament for your collection? You could have me stuffed and put in one of those cases, all your problems solved!”
He turned away. “I’m tempted.” His callousness stabbed her. “You don’t have to stay, Robyn. Leave. Straight down the drive, turn right; the villagers will point you in the direction of Cork.”
“I’m tired,” she said. “My feet hurt. I’m cold. If you can’t say anything helpful, at least let me make a fire. Don’t tell me: we can’t have a fire because someone might see the smoke?”
He exhaled. “I always have a fire. If anyone comes… well, it won’t be the first time. I set their minds at rest and send them away.” His tone was sinister. “Didn’t you notice the logs on the hearth?”
“If they’re not too damp to light.” She went down on her haunches, pushed her coat sleeves back, and picked up a log. Dust blackened her hands. “The least you can do is help me! Are those newspapers to light it?”
Sebastian crouched beside her, very close. He took her face between his hands and kissed her.
“Beloved child, I’m only teasing. I can’t resist it. But you’re right, I am a fool; I’d forgotten that humans don’t live on… air. Will you forgive me?”
“Will you bring me something to eat?”
“Of course. I don’t want you to leave. Forgive me.”
He crumpled up brittle sheets of old newspaper – with headlines about Lloyd George’s treaty with Ireland – and piled logs on top. Damp or not, the wood caught light magically for him. Sparks flew, scarlet light danced. And at last she felt warmth brush her palms. Unfastening her coat, she knelt on the hearth rug and watched the fire blossoming.
Sebastian knelt beside her. Sliding his arm under her hair, he kissed her again, deeply and tenderly, his tongue tasting hers and lighting the nerves all through her body; simply went on kissing her until she turned fluid, like mercury.
“Well?” he said, after a time.
“You’re forgiven,” she said, “conditionally.”
He stood up, lifting her with him. “Depending on my future good behaviour? Stay here and keep warm while I’m gone. I have been many things but never a grocery boy.”
“But it’s the middle of the night!”
“So? I don’t want anyone to see me. I’ll take what we need and leave the money. They’ll think the faerie folk have been a-visiting. Now, what would please you?”
“I’ll make a list,” she said grimly.
While Sebastian was away, she sat huddled on the edge of the hearth, aware of the age and immensity of the mansion around her. She longed for her cosy home in Boston. Perfect madness to come here.
I’ve never been the same since the first time he… she rubbed her neck, where many wounds had opened and healed. Do I love him? Is this what it feels like? Am I sitting in this godforsaken hole for love?
Half an hour passed. She was bored and uneasy, an unpleasant combination. She tried to sleep but couldn’t; too many dead eyes were staring at her. Everywhere she looked were birds, mammals, painted humans, all dead and staring in accusation.
I wonder how Alice is? Hope she’s forgiven me for leaving just a brief note to say, “Sorry.” Hope I left them enough money.
She stood up, wrapped her coat around herself, and went to explore. From the half-landing, she mounted the stairs, the candelabrum in one hand. The treads, covered by worn carpet, creaked alarmingly under her feet. Rosy-cheeked, wooden-looking children in eighteenth-century dress stared at her from paintings. They looked little adults.
One flight up, she found a gallery that overlooked the salon. Dust, moonlight, a view of the estate from the murky windows. How bleak the landscape looked. She found bedrooms with fourposter beds draped in rotting fabrics, wallpaper curling off the walls, more paintings, priceless furniture, an obscenity of neglect. One room contained no bed, only an oblong shape covered by a dust sheet. A huge coffin? She lifted the corner of the sheet. Nothing more sinister than a packing case. Further on, she found a four-room apartment that was a treasure trove of junk: more glass cupboards full of shells and stones, stags’ heads and framed pictures in disarray, boxes full of tools, books, toys and military regalia. Nothing, it seemed, had ever been thrown away.
The topmost floor was disappointing. Narrow, dilapidated corridors with paint and plaster flaking off the walls. Servants’ or children’s rooms, some empty, some filled with drifts of clutter, all unspeakably depressing in their starkness. Their windows overlooked the central courtyard. The flagstones were overgrown with moss. The mottled walls could have been those of a prison.
Don’t go upstairs, indeed! He must have known his words would awaken her curiosity. Don’t open the box, Pandora.
Then she found a nursery. A large room, barely lit by moonbeams through a single big window. No echo of childish joy; the chamber was cheerless, grey, haunted. On naked floorboards, several generations’ worth of toys were shored up against discoloured, peeling walls. Robyn picked her way through the room, looking at rusty prams, doll’s houses, a rocking horse on massive green rockers, waiting in vain for a small rider. She touched its grimy mane, saw that its legs and neat Arabian head were riddled with woodworm. Dolls lay among wooden guns and toy soldiers like eyeless babies.
This house was haunted. Desolate with loss and regret.
Robyn began to weep, unable to help herself. She wept for the children who no longer filled this place with life; she mourned the children she had never borne, because God had seen fit to tear them prematurely out of her. No, it was my husband who destroyed them… or maybe I did it myself to spite him, because I wouldn’t perpetuate his bloodline.
She sobbed without restraint. Desolation everywhere.
If Sebastian were my husband instead, could I have happily given him sons and daughters?
In response, she felt sexual warmth spread through her abdomen. She fell to her knees. Oh God, so I do love him. Oh God, oh hell.
Carefully she put down the candelabrum. She leaned on the rocking horse’s foreleg, her breath quietening. A foolish spasm. Over now.
In the darkness that lay heaped in a corner to her left, something moved.
Robyn jerked backwards. A scream rose into her throat and caught there, fluttering.
I must be seeing things…
The shape moved again.
She leapt to her feet, nerves shrieking with the urge to flee. Yet she froze. The thing that unfolded and groped towards her was human-shaped. A glossy black head. Slender dark limbs.
&nbs
p; It looked up, and she saw black irises ringed with white.
Fleeing would not make it go away. Her instinct was to keep the thing in view, but she dared not bend down to pick up her source of light. Very slowly, she began to back away towards the door.
The apparition stretched its hands towards her. Then it spoke. The sound of its voice made her catch her breath in shock.
“You have forgotten us.”
Robyn collided with something soft behind her. An arm came round and gripped her across her chest; her heart almost failed, and she cried out.
A second later she realised that it was Sebastian who held her. Ambivalent feelings assailed her. Was he trying to protect her – or had he lured her here to throw her to this demon?
The first feeling won. She swivelled in his arms and clung to him. In that instant, she realised that the apparition was addressing Sebastian, not her.
“I have not forgotten you,” he said.
Robyn forced herself to look round. Now she saw that the creature was female, brown-skinned, naked but for a mass of blue-black hair. And she also had an unearthly vampire glow about her… Yet she seemed vulnerable, huddling among the debris, stretching imploring hands towards Sebastian.
“What is she?” Robyn whispered.
His arms were firm and protective around her. She felt his breath on her neck as he answered with a soft sigh, “One of my ancient gods.”
* * *
Charlotte was not unhappy, but… unsettled was a better term. The Ballet Janacek’s home had become a fortress, there was constant tension between Violette and Karl, and the looming threat of Schloss Holdenstein. But things could be worse, she thought. We might have been prisoners of Cesare, or dead. At least we’re alive and free – for now.
“Charlotte?” Violette’s voice made her start. She and Karl were in the dancer’s sitting room, talking, but Violette had left only ten minutes earlier to supervise morning practice. “My secretary just gave me a letter addressed to a Mrs Charlotte Neville-Millward. Is that you?”
Charlotte took the ivory envelope and sat on a chair-arm, too shocked to speak. Karl’s gaze followed her, darkening with concern. “Er… yes. Or used to be.”
“I thought your surname was Alexander,” Violette said crisply, “but… I suppose we all pretend to be someone we are not.” She glanced at Karl. “Well, it’s none of my business, so if you’ll excuse me… Rehearsal, for which I’m now late.”
She left, closing the door behind her. Charlotte stared at the firm, neat handwriting on the envelope, the British stamp. Mrs Charlotte Neville-Millward, c/o Ballet Janacek, Salzburg, Austria. “Who could possibly know I was here?”
“Do you recognise the writing?” Karl asked, looking over her shoulder.
“It looks like Anne’s.”
“She has certainly taken no chances with your surname.”
She opened the envelope with apprehension. My family are trying to find me again, she thought in dismay. They still can’t give up.
My Dear Charlotte,
With no other clue to your whereabouts, I am writing to the Ballet in the faint hope that this letter may be forwarded to you. It is clear that you want no further contact with us. I’m sure that’s for the best. However, if I owe anything to the years of our friendship, it is to tell you this. Your father is dying. If you still care, if your goodbyes were not as final as they seemed, you may wish to come home.
Yours sincerely,
Anne Neville.
The abrupt style was alien to the warm, irreverent Anne she remembered.
She thrust the letter at Karl and waited for him to read it. Shock washed slowly over her, like some vast invisible horror descending from outside. Not my father, she thought. It’s impossible, he must go on forever. Father, no.
Karl said something. She looked up in a trance.
“Will you go?” he repeated.
“How can I? I can’t possibly leave with things as they are. And you’ll tell me not to.”
“I would advise you against it, with all my heart.” As Karl spoke, she had a vivid image of him in her father’s house; his lethal charisma, radiant against the comfortable banality of the life she knew. Inevitable, her seduction. “Vampires shouldn’t care, yet we still do. Caring baits the trap for us. Our loved ones change. They grow old and infirm and they die, leaving us behind. And because we haven’t been part of the process, we can’t accept it. They won’t be the same, Charlotte. They won’t know you. What can you do, except cause them more pain?”
“Then why did Anne write to me?”
“A sense of duty.”
“But what if Father’s asking for me? How can I not go?” Anguish seized her, an iron spear in her heart. “I said such bitter things when I left, and so did he. I resolved not to go back, but…”
Karl’s hand rested on hers. “Life consists of unresolved pain.”
“But they’ve offered me a chance… I don’t expect forgiveness. It doesn’t matter what they think of me. Just to be with him… but how can I leave Violette? It’s impossible.”
“Charlotte,” he said gravely, “if you want to go, you must. It’s your decision. I’ll watch over Violette. If anything happens, I’d rather you were out of harm’s way.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m sure you would, because that has always worked wonderfully, hasn’t it? We’re stronger together.”
“Unfortunately, you can’t be in two places at once,” he said dryly, “unless you happen to have a doppelgänger.”
“I have to go to him, Karl,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“You owe me no apology, love.” He stroked her hair, and she leaned into him. “Go swiftly, come back safely: that’s all I ask.”
“Gods, I wish you’d come with me, so they could see…”
“That I’m not the Devil? But by their standards, I am. It would do no good. They think we both belong to Satan, Charlotte, so be very gentle with them.”
Telling Violette was harder than she anticipated. Charlotte caught her alone in her dressing room after morning rehearsal. She thought the dancer would be unmoved, but to Charlotte’s dismay, she looked panic-stricken.
“No, you can’t go!” Violette exclaimed.
“It’s only for a few days.”
“Or weeks, or months.”
“No. It’s my father, Violette.”
“But what will I be without you?”
“What do you mean? You don’t need me that much!”
“Don’t you know?” Violette caressed Charlotte’s shoulders and arms. She looked exquisite, her hair a soft silken mass, ruffled from dancing; but she was also Lilith, seductive and terrifying. Suddenly she kissed Charlotte full on the mouth, a lingering, sensual kiss, charged with all her yearning. Then she clung to Charlotte, trembling from head to foot. “Where do you think my strength came from, to save you from Cesare? It came from you. Without you, I’d be lost.”
Stunned, Charlotte could only hold her, but Violette was a creature of thorns, impossible to comfort.
“A few days,” Charlotte promised helplessly, and fled before she gave in.
* * *
Robyn watched the goddess kneeling among discarded toys. She was naked, hair cloaking her like a midnight waterfall. Against the dusty grey clutter she was a polished, nut-brown icon.
“Is this why you told me not to come upstairs?” Robyn said. “How many others are there?”
He spoke quietly into her ear. “Robyn, I had no idea she was here. I have not seen her for more than two hundred and twenty years.”
Putting her gently aside, he went towards the creature. He was now dressed exactly as she had pictured him; dark tailored cloth, white lace. Her heart jumped. She pressed herself to the door frame and watched in bewilderment.
“What do you want?” said Sebastian.
The woman’s eyes were white crescents, tipped up towards him. “You have even forgotten my name, Sebastian.”
“No, never.” He crouched in f
ront of her. “You are Rasmila.”
She nodded. “Though I have had other names.”
“Haven’t we all?” he murmured. “So, why after all this time –”
Her hand shot out to rest on his collarbone. He gripped her wrist, and Robyn thought, He’s afraid of her!
“I’ve been waiting for you. I know you always come back here. I have nowhere else to go, no one…”
“I’ve seen Simon. He told me you’d fallen out. He wanted to use me, as if I were just a wind-up doll you’d set in motion all that time ago, but I told him no. I’ve nothing to offer him. Nothing to offer you, either, and I don’t want you here.”
“You can’t deny what you are!” said the woman, shaking him. However alien she seemed, her despair was genuine.
“I never asked you and your friends to do this to me.”
“But you wanted it.” She rose onto her knees and pressed her lips to Sebastian’s. The kiss lingered. Robyn’s jaw dropped. “We gave you the gift; now you must help us in turn! Our power is diminished…”
Sebastian pushed her away and stood up. “I don’t care. Leave my house.”
Rasmila sank down again, head bowed. “I won’t go until you listen to me.”
“Rot here, then.”
Ushering Robyn out of the nursery, he shut the door and led her downstairs to the saloon.
“Who is she?” Robyn demanded.
“I told you, one of the vampires who made me.”
“Why wouldn’t you listen to her?”
“It was their choice to transform me. I’m not in debt to them, and I don’t care what problems they’ve brought upon themselves.” He threw logs on the fire, stabbed at them with a poker.
“But she seemed distressed,” Robyn said cautiously. “Can’t vampires suffer?”
“We can. But she was more…” He stopped without elaborating.
“So you’ve no compassion for her?”
“She’s not an orphan in the storm. It’s a miracle she didn’t attack you! Lack of blood makes us weak, but it can also make us horribly strong.”
“You think she was just hungry? I don’t think so.”
The Dark Blood of Poppies Page 38
